Conflict Zone

by Don Pendleton

  Someone to kill.

  * * *

  Bolan was moving when Umaru finished off the wounded man beside the first chase car. Another gunman, standing in the middle of the street, tracked Bolan with his pistol, always firing just a crucial pace behind him, cursing every miss.

  A recessed doorway on his right gave Bolan shelter long enough to catch his breath and let the shooter waste a few rounds on the drab facade of the tavern where Bolan took cover. Anger had gotten the best of his would-be killer, but that didn't mean the guy couldn't get lucky and take Bolan down.

  It was time to be done with him.

  Bolan went low and outside, belly-down on the pavement while taking his shot — three for one, with the 93-R's selective fire system. Two of the slugs nailed his target for sure, traveling at 1,900 feet per second, striking with 560 foot-pounds of destructive energy.

  It was too much for human flesh and bone to bear. The shooter vaulted backward, arms outflung as if he hoped to fly, but gravity exerted its control. He hit the pavement with a sound like someone's bag of laundry touching down and moved no more.

  That still left at least two shooters. One of them chose that moment to pop up behind the first chase car and charge into the open, firing as he came. He pegged a shot at Bolan, then swung back to bring Umaru under fire.

  Bolan squeezed off a burst that cut the gunner's left leg out from under him, but even through that shock and pain, his adversary didn't fall. Though slumped and kneeling, he turned back toward Bolan, steadying his weapon in a tight two-handed grip.

  And that was when Umaru shot him from across the street, either a lucky shot or skill beyond what Bolan had expected from a guy whose former military training likely emphasized long guns and tedious close-order drills.

  Umaru's bullet struck the kneeling shooter in the head and finished him, although the dead man didn't drop immediately. For a second, Bolan suspected that his hips were locked somehow. It was the kind of crazy thing you saw sometimes, in combat or the aftermath of fatal accidents. Bodies could come to rest in odd positions, some apparently defying physics, but this shooter's corpse surrendered after two or three heartbeats, and he collapsed.

  How many left?

  Another moment, crouching in the open, told him there were none. They'd managed to survive it, unlike their opponents. Now, all that they had to do was get away before police arrived.

  And start the whole damned thing again, from scratch.

  Chapter Eight

  Lao Choy Teoh sat facing Ekon Afolabi in a small spare office situated on the third floor of CNP's building in downtown Warri. Afolabi had removed the floppy hat that he had worn to shield his upper face upon arrival, but he left the fake beard plastered to his chin. Each time he spoke, the mustache quivered in a way that made Lao want to laugh.

  Instead he had poured tea, serving the guest himself, and made no protest when the Itsekiri warlord wedged a plug of tobacco into his cheek, adding a bulge that made the wiry stage beard even more hilarious.

  "We've been apprised of your most recent difficulties," Lao told Afolabi. "My employer has requested that I ask if we can help in any way."

  "The girl was stolen back from us," Afolabi said, cutting to the chase with no pretense that they had met to speak of legitimate business. "Many of my men were killed."

  All caught on tape for future reference, if it was ever necessary for the men in charge of CNP to find new allies in Nigeria and help displace the old.

  Not that their first instinct would be to place Afolabi on trial for his crimes. Court cases only granted fools and maniacs a chance to speak, when silence was best for all concerned.

  "You think that K-Tech did this?" Lao inquired.

  "Who else? A white man comes to save the white girl. It is obvious."

  Lao shrugged. "Americans employed by Jared Ross are not the only white men in Nigeria," he said.

  "Who, then?"

  Another shrug would be too much, Lao thought. Such things preoccupied his mind when he was dealing with a shaky ally who might one day be his mortal enemy if anything went wrong between them.

  "Certainly, you may be right," Lao said. "It's logical, I grant you. But suppose that someone else wished to embarrass you — and MEND, of course. Who might it be?"

  Confused and wary, Afolabi gave his beard a thoughtful tug, remembering too late that it wasn't his own. Now part of it was dangling from the right side of his jaw, the wobbling effect increased. Lao bit his tongue as Afolabi tried to mash the flap of fake hair back in place.

  "I don't know," Afolabi said at last.

  "Consider that it might be someone allied with your enemies, the Ijaw. Someone who's aware of CNP's quiet support of MEND."

  Quiet was understating it by half. The whole connection between MEND and CNP was strictly covert, known only to Lao, to Huang Li Chan and, presumably, some of the company's controllers in Beijing.

  "You mean, the Russians?" Afolabi asked.

  Now it was time to shrug again.

  "I can't be sure, of course," Lao said. "But might it not make sense to them? Their SVR, in fact, is no more than the KGB renamed to make it palatable in the West. Its tactics haven't changed, and they have much experience in Africa."

  "Russians," Afolabi said, starting to consider it. "But.....

  "They support the Ijaw, as we know, hoping to gain petroleum concessions for themselves. MEND is an obstacle to that pursuit. Whatever harms the Itsekiri — and, by inference, your foreign friends — should please Uroil and Moscow."

  "When you put it that way.....

  Lao decided not to oversell it. "I could be mistaken," he replied with a self-deprecating smile. "I'm only human, after all. Perhaps the woman's father did effect her rescue, using mercenaries."

  "One man only," Afolabi said, correcting him.

  "Which makes it all the more embarrassing. Such men exist, of course. Most of them work for private military companies today, since army pay is pitiful. But.."

  "What?"

  "Oh, never mind. A fantasy, perhaps."

  "Tell me!"

  Lao frowned, making a show of his reluctance to proceed.

  "If you insist," he said. "I simply wondered if the Russians and Americans might be collaborating somehow. We've heard much about their spirit of cooperation since the Soviet Union collapsed. American capital floods the former socialist republics."

  "Is it not the same in China?" Afolabi asked, squinting one eye in an attempt to make himself look clever.

  "With a crucial difference," Lao said. "Beijing surrenders nothing, merely profits from the West's eternal greed. Americans don't infest our banks and corporations. We are using them, while Moscow grovels in its poverty, pleading for table scraps."

  "You've given me a lot to think about," Afolabi said.

  "May I give you nothing more?" Lao asked.

  "There is a matter of expenses, and the payments due to widows."

  Lao removed a satchel from beneath the desk he occupied and handed it to Afolabi. It was weighted down with cash.

  "A little something for the cause," Lao said. "If we can help in any other way.....

  "I'll be in touch," Afolabi said. "Certainly, if you hear anything that might identify the men responsible for our embarrassment.."

  "You'll be the first to know," Lao said.

  * * *

  "We need new "wheels," Bolan said as they cruised the darkened streets of Warri. He kept hoping that they wouldn't meet police along the way and have to talk about the bullet holes that decorated the Toyota.

  "It is best to take one from the parking lot of a hotel," Umaru told him, "or a shopping center. We can switch the license plates."

  "You've done this kind of thing before?" Bolan asked, smiling.

  "Call it misspent youth," Umaru answered with his own brief smile.

  "You did all right, back there, for someone out of practice," Bolan said.

  Umaru didn't answer for a moment, then he said, "Five years ago, I killed
two men. I was a soldier then, of course. Guerrillas had kidnapped workers from a Shell refinery in Yenagoa and were holding them for ransom. It's the same old story. I was in the troop assigned to liberate the hostages."

  "You did your duty, then," Bolan said.

  "Yes." Another silent moment passed before Umaru said, "I still recall the first boy's face. He meant to kill me, but when I shot him he looked... surprised."

  "It's always a surprise at some level, to be on the receiving end."

  "I think he was about sixteen years old. Of course, I can't be sure."

  "He made a choice. Unless you'd rather that he left you in the dirt and walked away, there's nothing you should second-guess."

  "It's not that I feel guilty," Umaru said. "I was certainly relieved to be alive. But that felt wrong, somehow."

  Bolan heard that, and he supposed that he could still recall the first face that he'd studied through a sniper scope, if he set his mind to it. But what was the point?

  Life went on.

  At least, for the living.

  And right now, the living needed new wheels.

  He let Umaru point him toward a shopping center on the west side of Warri, where physical security was lax and closed-circuit cameras were nonexistent. Bolan didn't relish ripping off some innocent civilian's ride, but neither was he keen on going back to Jared Ross and turning in one shot-up loaner for another. Most particularly not when Ross had stuck him with a LoJack monitor the first time.

  It had been a funny kind of thank-you for his daughter's life, and while Bolan had no reason to believe the oilman wanted him dead, neither did he plan to cultivate any kind of ongoing relationship. He'd liberated Mandy Ross as a favor for Hal Brognola, not her father — and as a way into the chaotic mess that was modern Nigeria. Now, well inside, with the pot simmering, any further ties to K-Tech would be deadweight strung around his neck.

  And Bolan needed that like a hole in the head.

  "There is the shopping center," Umaru said. "You call it a mall, I think?"

  "Tonight," Bolan replied, "I call it our used-car lot. Let's go shopping."

  * * *

  Valentin Sidorov liked to think that Russians rivaled any other race for subtlety, including the Chinese. For that reason, he had declined to meet Agu Ajani and his well-armed entourage at Uroil's offices in Warri. The idea of having Ijaw gunmen on the premises, cleaned up or not, had simply made him cringe.

  But meet they must. And so Sidorov found himself walking alone through one of Warri's rougher neighborhoods, the only white face on the street, with nothing but the weight of a GSh-18 semiautomatic pistol slung beneath his arm to comfort him.

  For this occasion, Sidorov had loaded the pistol with Russian 7N31 +P+ armor-piercing 9 mm rounds, just in case he was required to fire at vehicles, through walls, whatever stood in his way. Eighteen in the magazine, one up the spout and two spare clips in pouches readily accessible from almost any pose a living body could attain. If all else failed, and one of his enemies was still breathing after fifty-five shots, Sidorov also carried an ivory-handled switchblade for last-ditch emergencies.

  But he hoped none of that would be needed as he approached the address he'd received from Ajani's second in command an hour earlier. Tarnished brass numerals marked a door that had faded from crimson to a washed-out pink over time from exposure to merciless sunlight. The coded knock struck Sidorov as vaguely childish, but it worked.

  Daren Jumoke, the lately politicized rapist, stood on the threshold, looked Sidorov up and down and asked him, "Are you armed?"

  "Are you?" the Russian countered.

  "I require your weapons," Jumoke said.

  Turning from the open doorway, Sidorov advised him, "Tell your master not to waste my time again."

  Before he'd taken three steps, the Nigerian called after him, "Wait! It's a standard matter of security."

  Sidorov paused and turned to face him.

  "Your attitude's insulting," he replied. "And if you think I've paid you so much money in the past two years, hoping I'd get the chance to kill your boss man in this seedy shithole, you're delusional."

  Jumoke glared at him, but shrugged it off a moment later, stepped aside and beckoned Sidorov to enter.

  They found Agu Ajani seated at a table in a side room, flanked by men with automatic rifles held at port arms, index fingers well inside the trigger guards. Sidorov found that he couldn't resist another dig against Jumoke, telling him, "I see why you were worried."

  "Worried about what?" Ajani asked his number two.

  "It's nothing," Jumoke said. "Just a Russian joke."

  "Perhaps we can get down to business, then," Ajani said.

  "My thoughts exactly," Sidorov replied as he took the table's only vacant chair, leaving Jumoke standing. "It appears your rivals from the Itsekiri tribe have suffered an embarrassing setback."

  Ajani frowned. "Who should I thank for that?" he asked.

  "I'll happily take credit for it," the Russian said. "But in fact, my people had no part in the delivery of Ekon Afolabi's hostage. Moscow may cooperate with the Americans on paper, but I don't share that attitude on operations in the field."

  "So, the Americans retrieved their oilman's daughter?"

  Sidorov shrugged. "I'm more concerned with what comes next. As you should be."

  "And what comes next for us?" Ajani asked.

  "An opportunity presents itself," Sidorov said, "to put more pressure on our common enemies, when they can least afford it. I, for one, would hate to waste that chance."

  * * *

  "I don't trust the Chinese," Taiwo Babatunde said.

  "You trust no one," Ekon Afolabi said.

  "Not true!" his giant second in command replied. "I've always trusted you."

  "And I appreciate it," Afolabi said, hoping that he wasn't required to use that trust as an offensive weapon of betrayal sometime in the not so distant future.

  "The Chinese, though..."

  "They are generous," Afolabi said.

  "For a reason," Babatunde replied. "They want our oil, and anything else they can grab while they're at it."

  "It's not our oil yet," Afolabi reminded him. "Making demands and achieving our goals are two different things."

  "I know that!"

  "We lost our leverage on Jared Ross last night," Afolabi said. "He is mocking us today, most likely celebrating with champagne. Until we make him weep, he won't respect us."

  "Well, his daughter's gone," Babatunde replied. "One of our people at Osubi saw the K-Tech jet take off. She's well out of Nigeria by now, and safely on her way back home."

  "Striking a child isn't the only way to break a man. What does he love more than his family?"

  "I don't know, Ekon."

  "Money," Afolabi stated simply. "Profit. Since our demand for ransom failed, we need to seek another course of action."

  "Yes," Babatunde said. He didn't suggest one.

  "Well?"

  "Urn..."

  Afolabi somehow managed not to roll his eyes while interrupting. "Would it not be fitting," he inquired, "for us to chastise K-Tech Petroleum? Have we no rights to the wealth of our own homeland?"

  Babatunde beamed at that, saying, "We do! We should! They must be punished!"

  "Excellent. You are my strong right arm, as always, Taiwo."

  Praise always infused Babatunde with childlike pleasure, and it cost Afolabi nothing. And, in this case, he was merely speaking honestly. Despite his mental deficits, Babatunde had helped place Afolabi where he was today — in the top ranks of MEND, with his influence felt statewide. Together, they still might accomplish great things.

  And if the time came when Afolabi had to choose between his own ambition and his second in command's survival, he would mourn the need to bid his friend goodbye forever. He would make the giant's death as quick and merciful as possible.

  "We should begin a new campaign at once," Afolabi said, shrugging off the maudlin moment. "And it must be clear that we
hold foreigners responsible for every drop of oil extracted from our nation. For every naira taken from our pockets, banked on foreign soil."

  Granted, the naira — Nigeria's base unit of currency — was worth less than a U.S. penny at the moment, but Afolabi believed in fighting for principals.

  Especially if they could make him rich.

  "Another pipeline bombing, perhaps?" Babatunde surmised.

  "Perhaps a little something more dramatic," Afolabi said. "Why not a whole refinery? K-Tech's, of course. I daresay thai will capture their attention and convince them that we are not to be trifled with."

  "An excellent idea, Ekon."

  "Is it? I hope so. Shall we bring the plan to life?"

  These little moments were among the best, planning new action in an atmosphere of righteous hope. And if the plans succeeded, that was better still.

  As they began to plan the largest raid they'd ever launched, Afolabi momentarily allowed himself to hope that this time they might win.

  * * *

  The trouble with drawing up hit lists in cities like Warri was the abundance of targets. Where to start? Which should be the grand finale? And how many stops should he make in between?

  Bolan had suffered similar problems during his one-man war against the American Mafia, while waging his urban campaigns in New York and Chicago, Detroit and L.A. The Mob had owned so much, employed so many fronts and bought so many "public servants," that a blitz demanded personal restraint.

  Bolan needed to keep his eye on the ball.

  Umaru made two lists, writing in square block capitals, blue ballpoint pen, inside a notebook they'd found in the car. The new ride was a Honda Civic sedan, four years old, but in good working order.

  So far.

  Bolan had moved his gear up to the floor behind the driver's seat, anticipating that he might require the Steyr AUG or some other tool on short notice, without pulling over to open his trunk. Plates were switched, and he'd considered running the car through one of Warri's all-night paint shops, but he didn't have the time to spare.

  Besides, why treat the Honda to a new skin, then place it in harm's way before the paint was fairly dried?